Friday Poem: "When I was barely twenty"

When I was barely twenty

 When I was barely twenty

I worked nights in a Wall Street bank

Doing the things done when the bank slept

I was a cog but thought I was a person

 

One dim early morning 5 AM perhaps

While handling some mail I spotted

A periodical of interest and briefly

Slid down the wrapper that held it

To read the T of C on the cover

 

That was my one false move

For a cog of a truer sort

Turned me in that morning

So that when my work was done

An official called me in to tell me I was fired

For violating the sanctity of a wrapper

That had an important person’s name on it

 

What’s worse he lectured me on my transgression

As if taking away my job wasn’t morality enough

 

To this day his motives remain uncertain

Though we can perhaps hypothesize

More certain is that he’s long gone

Deprived of the little life he’d hoarded

1/21-1/24/09

Copyright 2009 by Maurice Leiter

Posted with permission